| Image Views: 45260 This photo of the "Sears Tower" is taken from almost the same spot as yestereday's photo ... But this is from 100mm focal-length whereas yesterday's shot was taken from 18mm focal-length ... "Sears Tower" is the tallest building in America ... Compeleted in 1973, it rises about a quarter miles in the sky, with the roof at 1,454 feet [110 floors]. There is an observatory named "Skydeck" at the 103rd floor which is one of the most popular tourist destinations of Chicago. The observatory elevators are among the world's fastest at 1600 feet per minute ... so in less than a minute, you reach the Skydeck! • Next few days would be mainly "architectural" shots ... Past two days I've been writing my on some photography related issues ... and continuing this phase, today I pen my views on "Documentary Photography and Processing" ... THINKING ALOUD: Documentary Photography and Processing ... Let me begin with the stating the accepted notion that .... documentary photography is recording of reality, by depicting what a photographer saw and not what he would have liked it to be ... It is like telling a story …"Look what my eyes allowed me to see …” How far is the argument … “documenting photography are photographs the way our eyes sees them” valid??? Even with "straight" photography [without any pre-or-post processing] there are many ways by which a photo can be manipulate, for example, we choose the type of lens to use, where to focus, the exposure, the composition, the exact moment to click [and we often distort by using long or short shutter speed] ... Different camera, different lenses, different focus-points or different exposures would give very different results ... so a camera hardly captures reality as our eyes sees them ... This brings me to the related question … “Is it alright to retouch documentary photos using different pre-or-post processing tools”? I think – YES!!! Different processing tools often help us in correcting the imperfections of our camera … an overblown/underexposed area or skewed perspective that are common problems with any straight-from-camera photos and these can be easily corrected using various processing tools … which make the photos look closer to the reality … So why are so many people up in arms about the idea that a photograph edited/ processed in a computer is not really a true documentary representation? The basis of this argument is the belief that any retouching or alteration is equivalent to distorting the truth. However this argument is unjustified. It ignores the fact that a camera is often an imperfect instrument to capture what our eyes sees … and some post-processing or retouching may be used to enhance the veracity/accuracy/thuthfulness of the image, when done carefully. So a retouched/processed photograph may actually be depicting reality better than an unprocessed photograph ... The CRUX of the matter is … FAITHFULNESS TO REALITY … and if some processing/ touch-up helps in correcting the imperfections of camera … so be it!!!! We can draw parallels between photography and other forms of documentary work. For instance, when a journalist documents an event … he organizes the facts he saw and puts the information he gathered in an systematic manner to insure that it accurately portrays the reality he experienced ... Similarly a documentary filmmaker does not make film or video without some sort of editing ... he carefully selects what needs to be shown or discarded and also organizes the order in which the shots are to be presented in the movie ... So we see that every form of documentary work goes through some sort of processing and editing before it is presented to the public. So I dont think photography should be any different ... some retouching is alright as long as it makes the image closer to reality .... [Documentary photography - II ... of VI] |